The life and times of Lafayette Ryder

Author's note: This chapter is violent (But not enough to get placed in the side story) and sad but vital to the main storyline.

I vanish from Celestia’s room and rematerialize at the base of the highest mountain in the Solar range. I look up towards the peak and roll my eyes at the absurd height.

“Ready for a hike?” I ask Jeffery.

‘Fuck that,’ he commands aggressively, ‘fly up that fucking rock.’

“Whatever you say…” I shrug my shoulders, crouch down, and jump as high as I can. My wings unfold and catch enough air to propel me higher; I start flapping them and follow the side of the mountain almost all the way up.

I ascend two thousand feet, give or take a few hundred feet, straight up before I even see the nests and by the time I reach the first one I can’t even breathe the thin air. That Ok though, I don’t need oxygen, with Jeffery at my side I don’t need anything. It feels queer, not breathing at all, but after a few moments I cease to notice the loss. I land in the first nest and wake its inhabitants; three hatchlings and an older female. They all snarl at me and the mother swings at me. I catch her claw with my own and bring Jeff crushing down into her muzzle. My ears start to hurt from the screeches this bitch lets loose as I hit her again and again. When the rock is sufficiently covered in green blood and grey brain matter I turn to the cowering whelps behind me.

“Time to learn how to fly!” I cackle as I grab the nearest one by the nape of its neck and fling it off the cliff. I watch it tumble down and quickly right itself as I grab its younger sibling. I hurl the smaller dragon off the cliff as well and smile as it lands on a ledge fifty feet or so below. Its wings hit the jagged stone and I hear a sickening series of cracks followed by a high pitched squeal of pain and terror. I look back up and see a whirlwind of wings above me.

“Lafayette attracted the horde.” I joke as the closest group dives at me.

I kneel down as the first dragon, a big black motherfucker with only one eye, closes in on me. I grab the Honey Pot and point it straight up without even looking. I spin the wheel and unleash a funnel of burning acid into the lead bastards face and various body parts of the poor fuckers behind him. I hear the shrieks and roars as limbs are dissolved right off of the dragons’ bodies. I smile as liquefied flesh rains down on my head. I stand and spray more of the lethal fluid at those who were lucky enough to survive my initial assault.

“I’m signing in the rain,” I dance around and switch to scatter rounds to kill off all the stragglers of the first and second waves, “causing death and pain, I’m just signing in the rain!” a dragon lands next to me and I pull Slendy out as it lunges to bite me. I sidestep the attack and swing my sword up, around, and straight into the bottom of the beast’s maw. I listen to it gurgle and choke for a brief moment before sliding Slendy up and ending the miserable monster’s life. I withdraw Slendy and climb atop the slain dragon’s head to get a better view of the next nest and whatever foes are still alive.

“One hundred feet up and four dozen more faggots to kill,” I whisper to myself, “fuck that.” I do a back flip off of the cliff and fall for a few hundred yards. When I look up I see twice as many dragons are now giving chase. “Perfect.” I smile and twist around in midair so my feet point down. My wings flare open and my downward momentum immediately ceases, despite this I still feel like I’m ascending as the horde draws near. I create a transparent platform between my still body and the accelerating behemoths above me. I wait.

“Five, four, three, two, and…” I grin as the bastards start to collide against my obstacle like bugs hitting the windshield of a car on the highway; the effect is about the same too, just on a much, MUCH larger scale. The dragons radiate heat as they die and their spilt lifeblood literally boils as it runs off the sides of my shield. I remember Jacob saying something about drinking dragon blood as a drug of some sort so I decide to give it a try, at the edge of the now fading platform I lap up the hot, green fluid as it flows into the open air below. The first drop hits my tongue and a searing heat spreads through my body, my pupils dilate until I can barely see and my eyes burn, my skin crawls and my nerves spasm madly, my heart goes into overdrive and adrenalin flows through my veins like fish through a sea, and I’m hooked. I guzzle down as much of the rancid liquid as I can; I even lick clean the mortal wounds of my enemies and tear their corpses open for more. I’m in the middle of tearing a blue wyvern’s chest open when a new idea comes to mind. I rip past it’s rib cage and tear at loose innards until I find it’s still beating heart. I plunge into the chest cavity and devour the chewy muscle and all the delicious blood within. I feast on the carcass until the roars of the dragons above me remind me of my purpose here. I abandon the bodies and let them fall to the mountain base below in order to reach my destination.

I fly past hundreds of enraged dragons and ignore them all, I’m high as fuck and the only thing I want at the moment is to get my boy back. I soar fast and high until I see the peak of the mountain and the small mouth of a cave in it. I hover and look down at the horde below me.

“Fus ro dah.” I whisper as I clench my fist and imagine all the dragons as wingless lizards. I smile and watch them fall to their death. I turn and enter the cave, inside the Dragonoid is sitting cross legged and gnawing on a bone, behind him is…behind him is the remains of Thaddeus’ body minus one leg.

Jeffery, /B/, and Soulless Sun scream, shout, and order me to act but I just stand at the entrance to the cave and watch this thing as it snaps the bone and slurps up the marrow from within. I had thought the beast was hideous when I first saw it but it looks a thousand times worse now; it’s wings and tail remain but all it’s other dragon like limbs are replaced by human parts, it’s claws for large feet and scarred hands, and it’s head for a bald, tanning reflection of my own.

The voices in my head fade to white noise as I stare at this demonic caricature of myself, no, this perfect representation. It looks at me and smiles.

“So you finally see yourself for who you really are do you?”

“I’m nothing like this.” I murmur.

“Bullshit!” it screams. “Tyler, those insurgents, that boxer, Celestia, your own wife, discord, and now your own son! You’ve killed each and every one of them and now you’re in such denial you won’t even believe it when you see it with your own eyes!”

“No, NO!” I scream. “I know I killed Tyler and Martinez and those Iraqis, but I didn’t kill Celly or Twi or Discord! I went back and stopped it from happening, I saved them!”

“NO!” it shouts. “You killed them and then started living in a fantasy world in which you didn’t, hell your imagination is so strong that you made it real, but you did kill them. The Twilight you fell in love with, the Celestia who sent you to the moon, the Discord who ordered you around, the daughter you abandoned on earth, they are all DEAD!”

“No,no,no,no-”

“YES! You killed them with your own hands and then couldn’t even accept your own deeds. You never really came to Equestria Brendon, you never left Earth. The only thing you left was reality.”

The landscape around me shimmers and changes from the peak of a mountain to a perfectly whit room with soft padded walls. The demonic version of me is now a normal human wearing a straight jacket and smiling nonstop.

“Do you remember now?” he asks me in a calm, concerned tone.

“No.” I whisper.

“Let me elaborate,” he sits on a bare mattress and pats the spot next to him, I just stay where I’m at, “things were going just fine until you, we, killed Tyler, after that Jeff grew in our mind and killing became fun. We did well, never got caught or even suspected of the murders we committed. We joined the marines and got paid to kill people; oh those were the days, we got honorably discharged after we were tortured by insurgents and then mutilated them. After that we calmed down for a while and enjoyed our time with Lizzie, everything was fine until she accidentally cut us one day while we were cooking. It wasn’t bad, in fact it was great, we loved the pain. We started cutting ourselves in secret and mutilating ourselves for pleasure. We managed to hide it from Lizzie for a long while but then she found us out one day. We couldn’t let her tell; if she told they would examine us and eventually find out about our murders, so we killed her and the baby she was bearing. A neighbor heard it and we killed him too, and then his family, and then the police that came after us. For three weeks we ran and killed everyone in our way then you fucked up and crashed our getaway car. We got caught and placed here.” he spins his head around to indicate the room we’re in. “After that you lost it and built up an alternate reality were everything was better and you got to be the hero. I got lonely so I pulled you back here to rot alongside me.”

"So you're me?"

"Yes," he says, "and no. I'm physically you but my mind is different."

"Jeffery?"

"Now you're understanding."

I stare at him blankly.

“So Equestria’s not real?” I ask him.

“It is real because you made it so, in another universe everything you remember has actually happened, in another one those you’ve killed there are really dead, in a third you are still on the moon, in yet another you’re under Discord’s influence. It just keeps going and going, every decision leads to a different reality.”

“Which one is real, I mean really real?”

“This one of couse.”

“What if I don’t want to live in this universe, what if I want to live out my life in Equestria with Twi and Dulcie and my boys?”

“Too bad, so sad. You can’t go back, I won’t let you.”

“Oh really?” I approach the restrained man.

“Yes reall- oh shit.”

<><><><><>

Two guards and an orderly rush to confinement cell 42 when they hear the blood curdling screams coming from within. When they open up the door and enter the room all they find is the man who should be there, Lafayette Ryder, lying dead on the floor with his neck broken and his face mutilated beyond recognition. If not for the ID number on him they would have not known who he was. The guards stay as the nurse runs to fetch a doctor.

“How the fuck did he manage that?” guard one wonders aloud.

“No fuckin’ clue,” guard to responds as he looks at the mangled body, “his straight jacket’s still on and everything.”

The guards stand with the dead man until the nurse returns with a doctor who declares the man “Deceased by unknown causes” and orders the body removed. The remains of the infamous mass murderer are incinerated and disposed of later that week.

<><><><><>

In an alternate reality, which has grown to be just as real as its counterpart, a lavender unicorn weeps as her mentor, daughter, and son try to comfort her. A soft thud on the balcony outside of the room draws her attention and she looks over to see a broken man walk in carrying her baby boy.

“Lafayette! Thaddeus!” she squeals in delight and rushes up to her husband expecting a loving embrace. Instead she watches the love of her life drop at her feet and begin sobbing uncontrollably. Her son crawls from his father’s arms and snuggles up to her. Everyone in the room stares as the man they all knew and loved just lies on the floor and weeps.

They lie next to him and weep as well, for whatever happened that was so terrible that it could hurt him so must be terrible indeed. One by one they all fall asleep late in the night and then one by one they all wake the next morning, all except for the man.